October 31, 2013

Two Questions Have Been Answered

...in the latest episode of RWBY.  For one thing, we now know that at least one of the promo trailers is canon.
'...and then the bastards robbed our train!'

Of course the episode poses more questions than it answers...like what the HELL is going on with "Penny"?


Strange new character is...strange.

There are the usual technical issues with this episode and the voice work seems off (OK,Weiss seems off), but the story is actually pretty interesting and has grown beyond the super hero team/school show it looked to be at first.
The episode itself was not the action fest everyone was expecting. A quiet walk through town brings team RWBY in contact with a couple of wacky characters who engender a discussion that later turns heated. and threatens to break up the team. Along the way our heroes encounter some allusions to previous episodes....the larger plot is coming together. We also get a bit of insight into Weiss's background and why she's such a shrew.

An episode with no physical action, this was, nevertheless, fairly dramatic and interesting.

It looks like next weeks episode...the season climax..will be a quiet conversation over tea.

UPDATE:
more...

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Gentle Reader, Let Me Give You Two Useful Pieces of Information

1: Don't screw with the band.



2: Kill la Kill continues to surprise.

The show has been consistently fun. What's surprising is not just the twists of the story. It's that despite being over the top, vulgar and silly, Kill La Kill is turning out to be somewhat thoughtful.

  On top of that the transcendentally bad-ass band provides the show with an awesome score.

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October 27, 2013

Today's Kanji Lesson









These helpful phrases come via this weeks episode of the educational series Outbreak Company which also discussed such useful everyday terms as Pitching, Catching, Furry, Oppai, BL and how to properly set flags.




We also learn that 10 year old dwarf boys have beards.

Given that our heroes have come from another dimension to corrupt the youth of an undeveloped country, it is possible that Kill la Kill is not the most depraved show this season after all.


Despite the downer in the teaser this was a much more lighthearted episode than last weeks. However, like the first three, this had some pretty serious plot points touched on amongst all the wackiness.

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October 14, 2013

Rediscovered Dr. Who (Troughton!)

9 new Dr. Who Episodes were discovered earlier this year in Nigeria. The remastered versions were screened recently and they will be available for sale this week on iTunes.

Amongst them are Web of Fear



... a well regarded 6 part  story which is the first appearance of the Brigadier and is actually the direct prequel to certain recent plot points in the current series.

Also discovered was Enemy of the World.



...which looks quite silly.

Despite their limited budgets, several of the Troughton and early Pertwee episodes used the black and white medium to great effect.

UPDATE!:
In the comments to this post, the Mysterious Mr. Will informed us that I was sufficiently behind the curve that my "This week" was actually last week.  This means that the recently discovered Dr. Who episodes are on iTunes now!



more...

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October 06, 2013

Bodacious Light Novels

J. Greely over at Dot Clue is reading the Miniskirt Pirates light novels examining the differences between them and the Bodacious Space Pirates anime as he goes.

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Kill la Kill

The latest installment is the cute girls doing cute things genre is a gentle, methodically paced tale that  follows a charming but haunted young lady who transfers into a new high-school where she knows no one. She struggles to fit in and find friendship by joining an after-school club populated with wacky misfits.

Please be advised that this is NOT a review of that show.

The show being reviewed here does involve a female transfer student which may have contributed to some confusion. However, if you're looking for a review of that show then you probably don't want to scroll any further. In fact you should probably move along because that show sounds boring and I'm not likely to review it this season.



Now that we've cleared that up...

Kill la Kill
follows a young lady named Ryuko Matoi, who is seeking to avenge her fathers murder. Her one clue to his killers identity (and her primary weapon) is a is a scissor...


...singular.

Wandering through a rather run down city, she enrolls in the local high school as a transfer student and makes an inquiry about the student council.



...at which point things proceed to deteriorate with considerable alacrity.


The ad does not look anywhere as retro as this show actually is.

 With Kill la Kill, the people that made Gurren Lagaan in homage to giant robot shows have decided to accord the same respect to the genre of hard boiled high school gangster tales...and women in prison movies....and just generally shout out their adoration for Go Nagai.

This jarringly old-school retrogasm of a show is a completely over the top, tasteless exercise in gratuity. It navigates the utterly bizarre twits and turns of its story at a breakneck pace, all the while managing to be offensive, exploitative and refreshingly devoid of any redeeming societal values.

I laughed, I cheered, I winced, I deleted my browser history....

I don't know how long that they can maintain this level of truly high quality squalor but I aim to find out.

Update:

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October 05, 2013

In the Latest Episode of RWBY

...this did not happen.


Art by Marty Oum
 
I find that rather tragic.

Instead this episode provided us with a bit of insight into the history of their world and a major (but not entirely surprising) revelation about one of our protagonists.




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October 03, 2013

The Overton Window of Tech

In amongst his closing thoughts on Gatchaman Crowds Don makes an interesting point I'd missed.

Shifting attitudes toward information technologies can be followed in anime. In 1998′s Serial Experiments Lain, the "wired” is weird, scary and dangerous. In 2007′s Dennou Coil, evolved Google Glass is a lot of fun, though occasionally still dangerous. In Gatchaman Crowds, smart phones and conscious artificial intelligence are taken for granted and are generally benign. 


I never saw Dennou Coil, but the difference between Lain and this is jarring. Of course, they are different types of show and Gatchaman Crowds really is unusually upbeat,  but I think his trend-line holds up pretty well.



Of course... more...

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October 02, 2013

While Nonconducive to My Productivity At The Moment

...This podcast is sufficiently well done that I will have to catch up shortly (when I won't fear further distraction from my current assignments....or sleep deprivation due to nightmares).



It starts here.

Via Don...whose helicopters are properly sorted.
more...

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